DON'T open an account with Alliance & Leicester - even if they are offering you £100!

topgranny

I see from the latest e-mail that Alliance & Leicester are again offering £100 when you open an account with them.

My advice to anyone thinking of doing this is DON'T, DON'T, DON'T!!!

Both my son and I opened accounts with them a couple of years ago and we had nothing but trouble with them. They messed up the transfer of our standing orders and direct debits from our old accounts. They even told me that I should chase up the DSS to change my details (I was claiming sickness benefit at the time) rather than them. Because they didn't transfer all the payments that should have been made into the account, they were constantly stopping payments that should have gone out, and then charging me for the privilege.

I closed my account after just 2 or 3 months and transferred everything back to my cahoot account. My son closed his a while later but received a letter last week pointing out changes in the terms and conditions. He rang them, only to find that his account had not been closed (he actually went into a branch to close the account) and that they were loading charges onto the account as he hadn't been paying any money in!

Worst of all, I have now received the same letter from A&L and I'm worried that MY account wasn't closed either. I did write to cancel and can't now remember whether I had an acknowledgement or not.

adamc260

Yeh I found towards they end they were pretty shocking! Their internet banking is frustrating and not real time (like a lot of people commented). I tried to close my account and got passed to 3 different people all trying to get me to stay with them.

They said that I owed them £2 for 'overdraft charges' even though the account was a fee free overdraft up to £150. I was like 'im not gunna argue really over £2 but have you read what the account is?' the guy had to put me on hold for 10 minutes to establish I was correct.

Heard dreadful things about Santander too so rather glad I left before it all merged!

bigstevex

Myself and partner, 2 x £100 and 2 x £45 quidco £290 for 3 months of A&L (transferred them from old accounts where we had paypal direct debits lol). I would never ever bank with them though, very poor customer service and santander who now own them are worse!

McKneff

You could be echoing my thoughts on Abbey, who are now Santander.

My daughter and I had all the problems that you had.

I wouldnt touch them with a barge pole.

Consumerist

Easy chaps - you're scaring the children.

Opened an A&L Premier current account a few months ago - no trouble yet but I'm having some real misgivings about the horror stories coming to light about Santander group.

Woby_Tide

£200 of free cash for transferring accounts to them, all that remains is 1 account that funds the very decent 5 year fix they gave us for having a Prmemier account. Now opening a "Zero" credit card to take advantage of a years free cash on that car loan. Obviously have their faults but for the time being I've not been put out by them.

LilacPixie

I opened an account with them for the incentive too. Was smooth sailing for me.

Consumerist

I did have a problem with one DD during the transfer process but I came to the conclusion, at the time, that it wasn't the fault of A&L. They did rather leave it to me to sort out though.

I suspect that many problems arise because people don't fully understand the Ts&Cs and therefore tend to fall foul of them. On the other hand, the Ts&Cs seem quite complex and tend to be divided up into different documents which can be contradictory so that it's sometimes hard to pin down a requirement.

My problems with A&L are the derisory £250 FPS which restricts the ability to move money around quickly and they seem to be inordinately slow to do even the basics - you can't, for example, move money between savings accounts; you have to withdraw to a linked account (which may be an external account) and then make a payment from the linked account back to A&L. This seems to be a pretty antiquated system harking back to its Building Society days.

vaporate

Desperate surely? To offer £100. With catches too?

muffin_man

Consumerist wrote: »

My problems with A&L are the derisory £250 FPS which restricts the ability to move money around quickly and they seem to be inordinately slow to do even the basics - you can't, for example, move money between savings accounts; you have to withdraw to a linked account (which may be an external account) and then make a payment from the linked account back to A&L. This seems to be a pretty antiquated system harking back to its Building Society days.

Although I have an account with A&L, I class my main account as being with NatWest (they were my student and now my graduate bank) - but still getting 6.0% on the A&L so using it as a savings account.

Anyway, got some Online Savers at A&L as well. If I need to move more than £250 in a hurry, Natwest e-savings accounts accept faster payments, so I currently have my 2 NW e-savings accounts and my current account set up as payees from A&L, allowing me to send £750 if I need to.

Can't beat Natwest online banking IMHO though...could send £10,000 in an instant from there (if i had it ) - would never swicth from them for that reason alone.

sweetberryjam

I joined A&L under the £100 incentive scheme and they've been a complete pain in the a*se every since! Firstly they failed to send me a switching form, and the first I heard relating to it was a letter informing me I had neglected to switch 'on time' and therefore was ineligible.

So I phoned them up, and the woman on the phone assured me I was still eligible, they would post me a new form and so on...

I received the form, filled it out, switching took FOREVER (if you're short on cash I don't recommend it whatsoever - you need to keep enough to cover the Direct Debits in BOTH accounts since they don't let you know when it's been switched) and only 2 DD ended up being switched. I now have 3 DD with HSBC still, which I'm loathe to switch again because A&L are so bleeding slow about it all.

Now, I have been told I'm NOT eligible for the incentive because I'm out of the timescale for switching, and I didn't switch from the original account I applied to switch from. This is in spite of being told over the phone that I WAS eligible prior to me switching. The whole service has been shambolic and contradictory, I intend to write a long and threatening letter of complaint to them - if you're going to offer a switching service, at least provide some form of actual SERVICE. False advertising, IMO.